Genre: Beat’Em Up, Indie
Developer: sebagamesdev
Publisher: sebagamesdev
Platform: Nintendo Switch [reviewed], PC
Release Date: Sep 26, 2017
Price: $19.99
Remember when video games were about having fun? Well, Fight’N Rage remembers. Remember when developers weren’t trying to pretend to be movie writers and instead were just making fun games full of color and co-op fun? Fight’N Rage remembers. In fact, Fight’N Rage remembers all the things that used to make video games fun and simply amps them up to eleven.
Fight’N Rage is sort of an anomaly in the modern game space
Fight’N Rage is sort of an anomaly in the modern game space. It’s also messing with my core belief that you just can’t do a basic side-scrolling beat ’em up in 2019, outside of those joke ones on Steam with the developer’s friends green-screened into them. The genre just feels as if its long since reached its peak –until now. Beat’em ups are dead, long live beat’em ups.
What makes this game special from other games of the genre is the care taken from the mechanics down to the character design and enemy placement. Everything flows nicely and enemies build on top of each other and don’t only just get palette swaps. What helps is the throwback touches just about everything gets. If you grew up playing the beat’em up games in the arcades and home consoles of the ’90s, you’ll feel right at home.
Many characters, both hero and enemy, take inspiration from other games. The most notable is the female hero that looks an awful like like Mai Shiranui from the King of Fighters series. You also have enemies inspired by M. Bison and several other nods varying in scale. Playing the game often feels like an easter egg hunt to see just what something might have been inspired by.
Fight’N Rage does a great job of adding some depth thanks to enemies requiring thought in how you approach a lot of them
Visually Fight’N Rage is a delight. I normally hate visual filters that try to make a game look like it’s running on an old CRT monitor, but for whatever reason, it all works here. There’s something about playing the game on the Nintendo Switch in handheld mode that makes the filters work for the game instead of against it. Often times these filters feel like an afterthought and not as something core to the experience which isn’t the case here.
Animations are smooth and hit-detection feels right on the money. Different enemies have different range and abilities that also force you to engage them in different ways. I love me some beat’em ups like a brother but I’ll be the first to say that they get incredibly boring pretty fast. Even classics like Final Fight are hard to get through on home consoles, mainly for having unlimited continues and partially because things don’t change. Mash the attack button at the beginning of the game, mash the attack button at the very end.
Fight’N Rage does a great job of adding some depth thanks to enemies requiring thought in how you approach a lot of them. Sure, you can mash the attack button and get through most of the game, but end-level stuff will wreck you if you don’t understand how enemies react and work. Understanding how to beat enemies is key as well as how to cheese them to your advantage against each other, especially in the late game.
But combat here is more than simply hammering the attack button. The game features a basic combo system that allows for some real fun. You start by attacking an enemy and if you connect you can run up a combo on one or multiple enemies. Like with every other beat’em up the combo, if there is one as it’s most often just a being a stun lock, will end when the enemies drop to the ground, but you now have some say in this. You have a special metter that when full will allow you to perform a special but also can be used to juggle enemies and extend your combo.
Fight’N Rage feels a lot more like Killer Instinct or a fighting game than something along the lines of Final Fight
Just before enemies drop, you can hit your special to extend a combo by dozens of hits, and if you are in the right spot you can even juggle against a wall for an even bigger combo. Link enough hits to kill an enemy and they will explode into a pile of bones showing just how much damage you have done. There are also a couple of special moves that you can link which helps give you more options in combat, especially when dealing with large groups.
You can also throw enemies before or during a combo to force enemies not caught in your initial attack to get pushed back or become linked as well. In a lot of ways fighting in Fight’N Rage feels a lot more like Killer Instinct or a fighting game than something along the lines of Final Fight. Everything just feels grandiose, colorful, and far better than pretty much every original beat’em up that has come out post Street of Rage 2.
As for the level design itself, there are a couple of nice things of note. It’s hard to lay out a level when you simply scroll to the right, but Fight’N Rage manges some things that up the replayability. The game features a lot of cutscenes and a few endings depending on your character and how well you play which I enjoy and got me to go back to try characters that didn’t hook me visually on first look. Alternate paths in a single-stage also help and allow for secrets and different endings.
On top of all this Fight’N Rage features an in-game currency that won’t cost you any real-world dollars. Getting people to come back to a beat’em up is hard and the developers understood this and addressed that issue with tons of collectibles. Upon death, you rack up coins depending on how well you played which can then be used to unlock all sorts of extra content.
You can unlock new costumes, something that shocked me as nowadays that’s all DLC, a couple of new gameplay modes as well and new characters and extra tweaks to the game settings that can be used in unlocked modes. In fact, the game states that there are over 20 characters to unlock for use in the game and in the extra modes that help extend the games life.
Fight’N Rage is a simple game but one that offers up a fair bit of challenge for those looking under the surface. It’s a lot like a fighting game in that it’s easy to play but if you spend some time learning how to play you can get a lot more out of it. Hell, there’s even a training mode that really helps open up the game. Imagine my surprise when I realized the game features a parry system. It’s not needed to play but once you understand it changes everything.
I really love Fight’N Rage because it’s the sort of video game that gives back what you put into it. If you are a casual beat’em up fan you can have fun picking up the game every once in a while on the go, and if you are a serious gamer you have a lot to master and difficulty options that will challenge even the best of us. God be with you if you try and tackle the games hardest difficulty.
Every time I played I learned something new that changed the experience for the better. Learning to cancel moves added depth, understanding how to free myself from grabs and pull off instant saves if I got thrown gave me options, and weapons allowed to greater range and help with longer chains. I love a game that gives you options and that’s something pretty rare in the beat’em up genre.
Fight’N Rage came out of left field for me in such a crowded market but I’m so glad it came across my desk. There have been a lot of great games to hit the Nintendo Switch including another fantastic beat’em up in River City Girls this year but Fight’N Rage is right near the top in terms of fun. It’s so easy to take my Nintendo Switch on the go and load the game up for a few minutes of fun and just as easy to sit down and invest time practicing more advanced play. This is one you absolutely need in your collection. I really hope this one gets a physical release as it deserves it.
Fight’N Rage is one of the most fun beat’em up in ages!
Final Score: 4/5
*a press copy was provided for this review*
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